Intrigue Surrounds Iraqi`s South Florida Plant

This is a story of betrayal, secret formulas and international intrigue. A story of cherry flavoring and chemical weapons.

And the story of two men, a Boca Raton businessman and an Iraqi financier, drawn together by the irresistible scent of money.

The problem is figuring out whose story to believe.

At the core is the partnership between Louis Champon and Ihsan Barbouti, who together planned to use a secret process to corner the world market on the main component of cherry flavoring.

That is true, court records show.

Mixed into the murky picture are allegations that the company also had a sinister side: manufacturing a cyanide compound as an ingredient for chemical weapons.

At least some of those claims also are true, federal investigators said.

From there, things begin to blur.

-- In 1984, Louis Champon says, he began working on a process that would make him a very rich man.

Three years later, he developed what he claims is the only truly natural method for making bitter almond oil from apricot, peach, plum or cherry pits.

Bitter almond oil is almost 99 percent benzaldehyde, the stuff that makes almond extract smell and taste like cherries.

All other methods, Champon claims, use chemicals to make a benzaldehyde that cannot be called a natural flavoring.

He was planning to rock the flavoring industry and secure his fortune by pressuring the Food and Drug Administration to force other companies to label their product ``imitation cherry flavoring.``

At the same time, he alienated his family over money, became estranged from his wife and three children and left his father`s New Jersey flavorings company.

``He`s the black sheep of the family. You have 15 people here who will deny ever knowing him,`` said Champon`s brother, Tom. ``He`s a tremendous salesman, but it`s all a con.``

Louis Champon says his brother is a liar.

With a formula in hand, but no money to produce it, Champon sent out more than 500 business plans to well-known financiers.

Enter Ihsan Barbouti, an expatriate Iraqi living in London, an architect and businessman, who Champon said saw a way to multiply his $5.3 million seed money.

They hoped to eventually produce 100 tons of flavoring per year -- half the world market -- and generate annual sales of $100 million in flavoring and marketable byproducts.

Barbouti and his son, Haidar, 23, a student at Columbia University, met with Champon in London in February 1988. They began Product Ingredient Technology in Boca Raton that May.

-- Ihsan Barbouti was a busy man when he met Champon.

He was designing a ``technology center`` in the Libyan desert 40 miles south of Tripoli and orchestrating complicated deals involving worldwide shipments of machinery, chemicals and building materials. And oil rigs.

The job was only a sidelight for Barbouti, whose estimated worth was more than $100 million and who ran a string of factories around the world.

Ihsan Barbouti saw no reason to hide his close relationship with the Libyan government, later telling Time magazine that from 1984 to 1987 he was paid $200,000 a year plus bonuses to build the complex.

The CIA, however, described it as the world`s largest chemical weapons factory. It was destroyed in February 1990 in what was suspected to be a covert military mission.

Champon says he knew nothing of his partner`s ties to Libya until the Time article in February 1989, and he was so stunned that he called the U.S. State Department in Washington to notify them of his involvement with Barbouti.

But Champon never severed the financial umbilical cord. Instead, he haggled with Barbouti over money and flew to London in August 1989 to plead with Barbouti to continue backing the project.

According to several former employees, Champon was summoned to London to explain his extravagant purchases. The Barboutis had spent $4 million, and the plant had yet to produce cherry flavoring.

The money ran out early this year. The firm`s 19 employees were told they would no longer be paid, and the plant closed. Only 100 pounds of flavoring was ever manufactured, Champon claims.

``I actually think the Barboutis might have been the victims here,`` said a former employee. ``They`re out $5 million.``

-- Trust was a scarce commodity from the early days of the project.

Peter Kawaja of Lighthouse Point, who says he is a private detective and electronics expert, was hired in early 1989 to install an elaborate security system at the Boca plant.

The system was not designed to detect intruders, Kawaja said. It was designed to watch employees.

Champon said the Barboutis were after two things: his secret process and one of the marketable byproducts -- ferric ferrocyanide. The compound is considered non-toxic and is used in inks and carbon paper, among other things.

But in the wrong hands, ferric ferrocyanide can be transformed into lethal sodium cyanide liquid or hydrogen cyanide gas, which causes death by suffocation.